


Intention

by orphan_account



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Character Study, F/F, Miscommunication, Repression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2020-08-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:41:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26174422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Adora and Catra had always and only ever wanted to protect each other.Why, then, was it so very difficult?
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 54
Collections: "I was only trying to protect you!"





	Intention

**Author's Note:**

> This is a submission for a Ficlet Challenge with @tshjortile and @Icetor!  
> Prompt: "I was only trying to protect you"

“I was only trying to protect you, Catra!”

Catra’s frown pulled deeper. Adora’s own bleeding heart thickened her words until they dripped, slow and heavy, into every empty spot within Catra’s racing mind. Catra forced her fingers hard into the bristly skin at her elbows where she clutched her arms, if only to hold herself together at the fraying seams, wasted and worn against years and years of fighting to survive in the Fright Zone.

Fighting. That’s what had gotten them into this newest mess. Another fight with another Force Captain. But how could anyone really blame her? Fighting was all they had taught her. Fighting was all she knew.

“I don’t _need_ you to protect me,” Catra growled.

“How can you say that?” Adora countered with an almost angry surprise.

And Adora was right. How _could_ Catra try to deny Adora’s strong arms, and the warmth of her embrace as she valiantly, _heroically_ tried to comfort her, fix her mistakes, and make it better. That’s all Adora had been doing for years. And for years, it had felt wrong; _weak,_ for Catra to rely so heavily on Adora’s benevolent, dutiful _charity_.

“I don’t want to be just another objective for you to defend, Adora.”

And her words were so sorely, desperately true.

Catra wanted so much _more_ than that.

* * *

“I was _trying_ to protect you.”

Catra’s angry words slid into the air like a knife. Adora’s eyes widened. The smoke hadn’t cleared. The sounds of war echoed, shattering their shared silence as they stared each other down across the desolated battlefield where a town had once been.

“How can you say that? How could you think keeping that a secret would have helped?” Adora replied with hurt exasperation, the cool blue of her eyes shimmering with the start of frustration’s tears.

 _Because if I told you that the Horde was evil you would have left the Fright Zone. You would have left_ me _._

Catra grit her sharp teeth.

“Wasn’t it _obvious?”_

But it _wasn’t_ obvious. _She_ wasn’t obvious. She never had been. That was the issue.

* * *

_I was only trying to protect her._

Adora’s unwanted thought awakened her, throwing her back into Bright Moon Castle's deep, silent darkness. She glanced down at the empty spot at the foot of her bed and her heart ached in her chest. 

She wondered what Catra was doing. She wondered if she was awake. She wondered where Catra would be sleeping now. Would she finally want to sleep in her own bunk? Would she still idly purr, as she drifted off to dream?

Adora missed the warmth of her. The heart-racing closeness of her. They way her varicolored eyes had shown, glowing brilliant citrine and sapphire in the near darkness, and narrowed with an expression Adora had never seen. An emotion she could never quite place. What had Catra wanted back then? Why didn’t Adora know? They had been best friends. 

Adora had said they always would be.

Adora tore herself away from delving back into those painful memories. She had willingly abandoned Catra, and she felt hardly deserving of that beautiful memory, or any other.

_I was only trying to protect her, but I failed._

_Even though I’m She-Ra now. Even though I’ve helped so many other people._

_Why couldn’t I do that for her?_

* * *

_Adora doesn’t want me. Not after what I did. Not after the portal._

_So I’ll just stay away._

_I’ll just bury myself into the Horde’s war machine. With all these panels and screens, battle-ready forces, marching orders, strategic outlines, recon alerts… it’s enough to keep a girl busy. It has to be._

_My jaw still hurts, sometimes. I can feel it. A stinging ache of pain as I look at myself in the mirror. But there’s nothing there. No bruise. No break. My fingertips, against my cheek, feel strange and unfamiliar._

_I can’t remember the last time I’ve felt like myself._

_If I saw her. Just for a moment, I—_

_But she doesn’t want that. Not anymore. I made my choice. I’m living with it. Trying to, at least._

_So I’ll just stay away._

_After everything, I’m still trying to protect her._

_It’s just that now I know what I’m protecting her_ from _._

* * *

After that, Catra kept trying. 

She tried to protect Adora from Horde Prime. She tried to protect Adora by giving her Glimmer back. She tried to protect Adora by allowing her to let go. 

But Adora was still trying to protect Catra, too.

When Adora came back for her. When she jumped off Horde Prime’s platform, into a dark abyss for her. When she held Catra in her arms and reclaimed the power to save her. 

On Mara’s ship, after all of that, when Catra shivered against the memory of a nightmare and Adora reached out her hand. When Catra let that memory in, so that she could see Horde Prime’s plans.

When they finally made it back to Etheria, and Catra _left_. Hadn’t it only been to protect her?

On the way to the Heart, when Catra volunteered to fight the beast. When Adora came back for her again. When Catra followed her into the Heart and _stayed_. When Adora allowed herself to accept Catra’s love.

When the shield appeared in Adora’s hand, even as she lay unconscious, and she raised it up above where Catra clung to her.

They had always and only ever been trying to protect each other. 

And in the end, it worked. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! 
> 
> Here are the other submissions for this prompt!
> 
> [I was only trying to protect you](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26141416) by Icetor  
> [Something Stupid](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26091211) by tshjortile


End file.
